My production group is making a short war film for a producer in hollywood who is wanting to see our work. I am planning on having a helicopter crash... being a low budget film maker, I can not afford a helicopter to drop from a crane or something like that. I have 3ds max, And I know well on animation, Texturing, converting into real time footage, and a Good amount on Rayfire tool. I have searched google and I cant seem to find anything... good? The only thing I heard of a good plugin in, which is reactor for 3ds, but I cant seem to figure out how to make displacement for a helicopter or vehicle. I'm completely clueless on how to use it. It there is any good tutorials or if anyone knows how to make a proper looking helicopter crash, Please notify me or comment below.

Thanks, Ryan

P.S: I got flying and animation/movements of the helicopter down. Only need info on collisions

Reactor used to be included in 3ds Max but was removed removed from 3ds Max 2012 and up, and was replaced with MassFX (which received a small update in 2013 and is still a work in progress).

My approach for a shot like this would be:

-Hand animate the helicopter to give it some general motion.-Separate parts of the mesh and use Cloth (either built in Cloth, Particle Flow Box #2 or Thinking Particles) to simulate crunching metal.-Use Rayfire or VolumeBreaker and Physx to simulate breaking glass.-Break certain pieces apart by hand (rotors, tail section) and simulate with Physx (massFX or Rayfire).-Add additional debris using particles (Particle Flow or Thinking Particles). -Simulate explosions/smoke/dust with FumeFX, Afterburn, Krakatoa.

Of course, this is only one approach. It is a pretty complex effect and I highly doubt you will find any free tutorials showing you how to do all of this.

For a tutorial on using cloth for crushing metal in 3ds Max, I would check out Joe Gunn's "Cloth Beyond the Character" dvd: